Posts Tagged: 2013 Fiction Prize

Judge Claire Messud has selected “Boomerang,” by Summer Wood, as the winner of Indiana Review‘s 2013 Fiction Prize! We received more than 300 short story submissions of impressive quality and range, all of which were read anonymously by our editors. We’re happy to also announce the runner-up and finalists.

Of the finalists, Ms. Messud writes, “The stories I read were so full of talent, so diverse, so lively and so interesting. The authors’ gifts are so distinct, and each so different. Each of these stories is a winner.”

2013 Indiana Review Fiction Prize Winner

“Boomerang”

Summer Wood

On why she chose Wood’s story, Messud writes: The story that I’ve chosen as the winner is BOOMERANG: not only is the prose precise, evocative and at times gorgeous, the author manages to move seamlessly between the narrator’s present voice — as an adult gay man in San Francisco — and his childhood experiences. The complexity of the characters and relationships evoked is impressive, and profoundly moving; and this story manages to imbue the narrative with both subtlety and tenderness, when it could, in less adroit hands, have run the risk of cliché.

Runner-Up

“Wolves”

Caitlin O’Neil

Messud: As runner-up, I’ve chosen WOLVES. Again, it is the resonant richness of character that strikes me most. There are no grand dramas, here, but rather a wise and thoughtful attentiveness to the force of the interior life, and a close attention to detail. The story takes place in the course of an afternoon and evening (with a coda the following morning), but its protagonist’s thoughts and memories give us the delicate outline of an individual and of her life. The prose in this piece is beautifully controlled; the authorial voice is strong and effective; the story, in its simplicity, is haunting.

Congratulations to our winner and runner-up, whose work will be published in Indiana Review summer 2014 issue. Thank you to everyone who submitted. We truly appreciate your thoughtful and excellent work.

As we enter the final weeks of the 2013 Fiction Contest, many writers are faced with the question: What does it take to win?

Because submitting work can feel a bit like fishing in the dark with your firstborn child as bait, we asked last year’s winner, CB Anderson, to say a few words about her creative process and to share a few strategies for success in short fiction.

Anderson’s prize-winning story “Mavak Tov” will soon be published in her collection River Talk. The book contains 17 stories — a combination of short and short-short fiction forthcoming from C&R Press in 2014 . Be sure to check it out!

In response to “Mavak Tov,” last year’s judge Dana Johnson writes:

This story haunted me. The main character’s longing and desire for comfort, for a place to be, is so powerful and recognizable, as is the conflict and question this story poses, not just for the main character but for all of us: At what price do we achieve comfort? At what point do we reject what is easy and familiar for something far more necessary, which is true agency and power? This essential question is explored through a beautifully rendered relationship between a mother and her daughter and between the wives of one polygamist man, in gorgeous, unflinching detail. Read more…

Time is running out to submit to the 2013 Fiction Prize! With only three weeks left, we encourage everyone to dive in and submit their stories for a chance to win. In order to make the seemingly daunting task a little easier, we asked this year’s judge, Claire Messud, to offer some advice to aspiring fiction writers.

Claire Messud‘s novels include The Emperor’s Children, which was a New York Times Best Book of the Year in 2006 and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Messud most recently wrote The Woman Upstairs and teaches in the MFA program at Hunter College (CUNY).

She graciously took the time to answer a few of our questions about what makes a story memorable and how to write resonance in “a world of toothpaste and candy bars.”

IR: What catches your attention most in the first paragraph of a story?

It’s hard to pinpoint what, exactly, catches attention. But as a reader, you want to be swept into a world. You don’t need to know everything about that world straight away, but you need to believe in it from the first paragraph. There are lots of ways for a writer to accomplish that — through voice, through detail, through style, through setting. I think it also always helps for a reader to feel that the prose is conveying a lot, is working on different levels, right from the beginning.

Each year Indiana Review receives thousands of story submissions, including hundreds to our annual fiction prize (now open!). And while there is a range of quality, what surprises me most is the high volume of finely crafted prose. To me, this is evidence of hard work. It is proof that writers are rolling up their sleeves, reading great writing, studying craft, and putting ink to the page. In this field of highly competent entries, what differentiates the stories that make it from submission to publication?

​ In “Three Stories Unlikely to Make it Beyond the Slush,” former Indiana Review Fiction Editor Joe Hiland outlines several attributes that earn stories easy rejections, and he goes on to offer three “types” of stories that often feel too familiar to transcend the slush pile. In “What Editors Want; A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines” from the The Review Review, Lynne Barrett provides an insider breakdown for anyone interested in submitting to literary journals. Yet even though both articles should be considered essential reading for any fiction writer submitting to Indiana Review, they do little to address what makes a story stand out.